Official Website of Italian Department at HHS

We would like to welcome you to our very first Italian Department Newsletter!

We the teachers of Italian at Haverhill High School (Mrs. Diskin and Mrs. Laffey) will be using this method of communication with you the parents, guardians and families of our students. We will inform you of any events, updates and general information about our Italian Studies.

All of our Italian Classes have been very busy working and learning Italian, since their arrival in late August.

ITALIAN 1 CLASS

In these classes, our students have been learning how to greet someone, how to ask for their name, age, birthday and address. They have also learned to ask and express likes and dislikes.

They are currently learning some basic verb functions along with adjectives, and nationalities in order to describe themselves and others.

ITALIAN 2 CLASS

In these classes, our students have been learning how to describe and talk about fashion. They have learned about reflexive verbs, adverbs and the present progressive tense, in order to talk about and write about the daily routines.

They are currently learning how to describe recent past events. These students do weekly readings from Un’estate tutta diversa reader. As a writing assignment Italian 2 students wrote to an imaginary Italian pen pal.

ITALIAN 3 CLASSES

In these classes, our students have been learning how to shop in an Italian market, how to give commands, and use double object pronouns.

Currently they are learning how to describe their dwelling and the furniture in it. They do weekly reading of Le Avventure di Pinocchio reader.

As a writing assignment Italian 3 students have written an essay about their summer vacation as a review of past tenses, and are currently writing an essay about their Thanksgiving.

ITALIAN 4 CLASS

In this class, the students have been learning about the preterite tense. They have been learning and discussing about prominent Italian historical and literary figures.

They are currently learning and discussing about the Italian political system. They do weekly readings of Uffa’ reader.

They have written about their summer vacation as a review of past tenses. Each of the students also wrote an informative piece about an outstanding Italian figure of their choice, using the preterite and imperfect tenses.

We have planned many fun activities for our members such as playing Bocce outside on the lawn, and playing some Italian board games in the classroom. We will be learning how to make ‘pizzelle” and “espresso”. Before the Christmas Holidays we will be buying gifts for our adoptive young family from Emmaus House.

We will be having some bake sales and fundraising to defray some of our field trip costs. Membership is open to all students, regardless whether they study Italian or not.